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By Jenna Sundel
News Reporter
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A former Supreme Court clerk said much of the deliberations on major court decisions are made by “27-year-olds after happy hour,” in comments to The New York Times.
“If the public were aware of how much of the deliberations affecting millions of people are made by 27-year-olds after happy hour, they’d be shocked,” Nikolas Bowie, a Harvard Law School professor who served as a clerk to Justice Sonia Sotomayor, told the outlet.
Newsweek reached out to Bowie and the Supreme Court for additional information and comment.
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Why It Matters
The comments come as trust in the Supreme Court remains at historic lows. A Gallup poll released in October of last year found that 49 percent of Americans say they trust the Supreme Court either “a great deal” (16 percent) or “a fair amount” (33 percent).
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“That level of trust is among the lowest in Gallup’s trend, essentially matching the low point of 47% from 2022,” Gallup said.
The results were based on telephone interviews conducted from September 2 to September 16 of 2025, with a random sample of approximately 1,000 adults living in all 50 U.S. states and Washington, D.C. The margin of sampling error is +/- 4 percentage points.
What To Know
The Supreme Court Historical Society says on its website that each justice is entitled to four clerks, who come to the court as top graduates of law schools.
Law clerks have no defined duties and carry out their judges’ instructions, according to the Law Clerk Handbook by the Federal Judicial Center.
“In most chambers, law clerks concentrate on legal research and writing. Typically, a law clerk’s broad duties include conducting legal research, preparing bench memos, drafting orders and opinions, editing and proofreading the judge’s orders and opinions, and verifying citations. Many judges discuss pending cases with their law clerks and confer with them about decisions,” the handbook stated.
Michael Gerhardt, Burton Craige Distinguished Professor of Jurisprudence at the University of North Carolina, told Newsweek, "The responsibilities of law clerks depend on the justice for whom they are working."
Gerhardt said justices will differ on the level of authority they delegate. "I cannot say what Nicholas’s experience was, but it has always been difficult to get much insight into the clerks’ work because clerks have long sworn to maintain confidentiality over their work."
The New York Times reported that, since 2024, clerks and members of the court’s support staff have been asked to sign a nondisclosure agreement. The move came after a series of leaks of internal court documents, including the decision overturning the right to abortion, according to the outlet.
Some past clerks, but not all, said they were asked to sign a different kind of confidentiality pledge, the outlet reported. Supreme Court employees have long been expected not to reveal information about the court’s inner workings, according to the outlet.
The agreements introduced in 2024 are more forceful and threaten legal action if violated, The New York Times reported, citing people familiar with them.
Gerhardt said the reported agreements make it "even harder" to gain insight into the work performed by clerks.
What People Are Saying
Nikolas Bowie, a Harvard Law School professor who served as a clerk to Justice Sonia Sotomayor, in comments to The New York Times: “Many of the court’s decisions are being made out of the public eye in a way that makes it difficult to assess or criticize them, or to understand what actually motivated the justices. The lack of transparency makes it difficult for the broader public to know how to respond.”
Gerhardt, also to Newsweek: "I do agree with Nicholas the Court has made itself increasingly unaccountable and that is not a good thing; the shadow docket, their delegations, their enforcement of their own code of ethics, and interactions in clubs, societies, and other venues away from the public eye underscore how little accountability they have to the law, the public, and to Congress, which controls its budget."
Jeffrey L. Fisher, co-director of the Supreme Court litigation clinic at Stanford Law School and ex-clerk to former Justice John Paul Stevens, in comments to The New York Times: “They feel under the microscope and are unwilling to rely simply on trust.”
What Happens Next
The Supreme Court is currently in its 2025-2026 term, which is expected to end in June.
Update 2/2/26, 4:45 p.m.: This article has been updated with further information.
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